Geneva/Islamabad – The
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS) have begun distributing food to about 40,000 people in and near Mingora, the main town in the Swat valley.
Yesterday, they handed out food to an initial 7,000 people.
"The people who stayed behind in Swat during the fighting have been under curfew for weeks.
They have run out of
basic supplies," says Mohamed Sheikh-Ali, the delegate in charge of economic security for the ICRC in Pakistan.
"The situation is beginning to improve, but right now these people need
assistance, including food, in order to cope." The food packages contain a month's supply of flour, rice, split peas, vegetable oil, sugar, tea and salt.
Mingora has been one of the main
flashpoints of the military operation in the Malakand Division.
Most people left the area to seek refuge in safer parts of the country.
However, tens of thousands stayed behind
to guard their property, in the hope of harvesting the wheat crop, or simply because they were unable to leave.
They spent weeks without electricity, water, telecommunications and health
care.
"The ICRC is the only international humanitarian organization in the area right now, and the needs are considerable,” comments Daniel O'Malley, a delegate who has been based in
Mingora for the last two weeks.
"We are trying to act as fast as we can, but we need to be able to get our trucks in and out of the district safely if we are to deliver." The ICRC
re-entered Swat on 3 June and has now established a permanent presence in Mingora.
It has evacuated casualties to its surgical hospital in Peshawar and is supporting Mingora Hospital and
Khwaza Khela Civil Hospital.
The organization also helped over 300 families In Swat to get in touch with relatives who had fled the area.
An internally displaced man, who fled a military offensive in the Swat valley region, finds shade at the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) Jalala camp in Mardan district, about ...
